


Treading Lightly

by mangochi



Series: Almost Human Prompts [2]
Category: Almost Human
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Or not, Prompt Fic, in which Dorian plays matchmaker, or severe bromance, pre-slash kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt Fill: Dorian sets John up on a date with Stahl, but he finds that doesn't like the results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Treading Lightly

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: If you are still taking promos how about Dorian trying hard to set up John with Stahl but when succeeds he doenst really like the results :>
> 
> So this turned out waaayyyy more fluffy that I originally intended, but I’m quite upset over the three week break in episodes so I’m cheering myself up with gratuitous fluff in the meantime.

John doesn’t take kindly to Dorian’s gift. 

“It’s a perfect replica!” Dorian protests, catching the holographic projector before it hit the ground. 

“That’s the damn problem, Dorian! How the _hell_ did you get a fullbody scan of Detective Stahl without her clothes on, anyway?” John snaps, practically purple in the face.

Dorian gives him his best impish smile. “I have my ways.” 

John throws his mug at him. 

…

“She likes soccer,” Dorian states, apropos of nothing.

John glances at him irritatedly, then fixes his eyes back on the road. “Who?” 

“Detective Stahl,” Dorian answers patiently. “She likes soccer.”

John grunts noncommittally, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, and Dorian takes it as a positive response. “There’s a game on tonight,” he prompts helpfully. “We could swing by the store...grab some beers…” He waits, in eternal hope that John would pick up on his subtle implications.

John grunts again, and Dorian decides that perhaps subtlety is simply not the man’s strong suit. “You should go on a date,” he says bluntly, and waits for the blow to strike.

“With who?” is John’s only response, and Dorian resists the urge to blow out the sound systems in the cruiser out of sheer spite.

…

Dorian isn’t altogether sure why he’s so determined to see John on a date. It has something to do with his subconscious programming, he suspects, the deep input urges to ensure that his partner’s well-being was in safe hands. Valerie Stahl has very small, very capable hands, if only John would consent to Dorian putting him in them. 

"They'd have lovely children," he muses, as Rudy fiddles with the open panel in his forearm.

"What was that?" Rudy looks up absently, his right eye magnified by the lenses of his goggles and giving his head a lopsided look. 

“I’d be Uncle Dorian. And they’d have her eyes,” Dorian continues sadly. “His smile. Or maybe his eyes, her smile. I haven’t decided yet.”

Rudy proceeds to run a scan on his cognitive processing programming.

…

Dorian isn’t particularly proud of what he finally does as a last resort, but he counts the success as far more than worth the moral dilemma. He sits at the foot of his charging alcove, waiting patiently for John to answer his comm.

“Yeah?” John’s voice growls aggressively when the call finally patches through.

“Detective Kennex,” Dorian says coyly, contemplating tripping a bulky MX as it steps into its charging alcove beside him. He doesn’t.

“Detective Stahl,” John says in his head, the irritation in his voice fading to muted surprise. “What can I do for you?”

Dorian unleashes a girlish laugh, then wonders with concern if Valerie would laugh like that. John doesn’t seem to mind, though, so he continues. “What are you doing right now, John?”

“Me? Ah.” Dorian pictures John hastily scraping a flux of empty beer cans from the kitchen table into a trash bag, as if somehow the comm channel harbors visual inputs as well as vocal. “Not much.”

“Well.” Dorian pauses for what he considers is an appropriately mysterious length. “I happen to be off duty next Tuesday at seven. If you’d like to, you know, have dinner or something.”

“Dinner,” John repeats dumbly, sounding stunned. 

“Mmhmm.”

“Or something.”

“Well, no, I was hoping for dinner, actually.” Dorian grins, imagining John’s flustered expression. 

He’s always liked that look on him, all scrunched-together eyebrows and tight lips and cheeks that don’t know if they want to flush.

“All right,” John says at length, and Dorian understands the human urge to punch the air when scoring a major victory. 

As soon as John hangs up dazedly, Dorian begins a call to Valerie.

…

Tuesday rolls around and Dorian watches with immense satisfaction as John fiddles with his hair in the rearview mirror at the end of their shift and fidgets in the driver’s seat, fingers tapping erratically on the rim of the steering wheel. 

“What’s with you, man?” he finally asks, unable to help himself, and John glances at him wildly.

“How do I look?”

Dorian is briefly taken aback, but scans John over obligingly. The man’s made a visible attempt to clean up for once and doesn’t look half bad, Dorian has to admit. John’s clean-shaven for once and smells like something spicy and manly, wearing a dark brown shirt instead of his regular black that only brings out the green flecks in his eyes. There’s a strand of hair dangling over his forehead, and Dorian hesitates momentarily before reaching out. John blinks, but unexpectedly doesn’t flinch away, only staring at him imploringly as if seeking for some sort of approval.

Dorian pats the strand carefully back in place, and he lets his fingers linger a moment longer against John’s skin before pulling away.

“You’re perfect,” Dorian tells him, and he realizes that he means it. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” John nods tensely and is out of the cruiser before it occurs to him that he never told Dorian about the date.

Dorian stares at his retreating back as he disappears in the station and wonders if this is his cue to quietly get out and return to the charging station. Perhaps, he thinks now, he should have considered this aspect to his plan before acting upon it.

He doesn't like the feeling he gets seeing John walk away from him like that.

...

"No Detective Kennex?" Rudy asks him, peering over his spectacles as Dorian settles down on an empty spot on one of the cluttered tables.

"No Detective Kennex," Dorian agrees gloomily. He looks down at his hands and rubs his fingers together absently. He can feel the slide of gel that John must have painstakingly raked through his hair, and brings it to his face curiously. It smells vaguely of mint, and Dorian thinks that it suits him. Sharp, but sweet if held onto long enough.

"He's on a date," Rudy surmises, with terrifying accuracy. 

"You have a Ph.D. in mind-reading I don't know about?" Dorian asks resignedly.

"Just because I'm no good with living, breathing humans doesn't mean I'm no good with the ticking ones," Rudy frowns. "So he's on a date, is he? Well, jolly good for him. I'm not." And he bends his head to his work again, stripping down the components of an artificial spinal cord. Dorian watches him morbidly, feeling his own back prickle in commiseration as Rudy rips out a vertebrae with a triumphant cry.

"Me neither," he mumbles, and wonders if that's the crux of the problem, after all.

…

"Hey, Dorian."

Dorian's sitting on the bench by the elevators, waiting for John to show up for shift. He looks up as Valerie sits down next to him, and several pieces click in his head before he makes the connection.

"You didn't go home with John last night," he says without thinking, and is surprised by her bemused laughter.

"You think I'm that kinda girl?"

"I don't know," Dorian says truthfully. 

"Well. I'm not." She's holding a mug of coffee in her hands, and she looks down at it now. It's exactly one hundred and sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, just the way John likes it, and Dorian doesn't know how he feels to have someone else know that about him. She notices him watching and hefts the mug. "Oh, this? It's for John," she says needlessly. "He'll need it after last night."

"Did you have fun?" Dorian inquires politely, because he can't bring himself to be rude to her. 

She shrugs, and her hair falls softly over her shoulder. Dorian doesn't have the urge to brush it back, or touch her face, or watch her smile. He finds it a little odd. "We went out for drinks. I drank him under the table, if you must know."

Dorian imagines John's disgruntled expression and gives a soft laugh. "Bet he didn't like that."

Valerie's watching him, and she leans forward to smile at him knowingly. "I know it wasn't John who made that call, Dorian," she says quietly. "He's not that smooth. Or nice."

"Ah," says Dorian. 

She pats his knee. "It was nice of you, really. But you should really consider yourself first." She hands him the mug and stands, looking over his head. "Good morning, Detective Kennex."

"Detective Stahl," John says gruffly, and his voice sounds markedly more haggard than the last time Dorian heard it. Dorian stands and is only half aware of Valerie leaving as John staggers towards him.

"Oh, thank God," the man growls, snatching the mug from Dorian's hands. "The woman drinks like a camel."

Dorian watches him down the coffee, a slow burn of satisfaction working its way from his stomach to his chest. He's sure that his whole body hums with it, that his circuitry's lighting up bright and clear.

"How was your date?" he asks, more out of curiosity than anything else.

"Nice," John says shortly. "Domestic," he adds, a second later. "Went to this quiet bar down by Fifth. I'll take you sometime, I think you'd like it."

Dorian doesn't properly process the words until John's striding for the station doors. He hurries to catch up, suppressing the urge to grab the man and swing him around by the arm. "What was that?"

John doesn't answer, but he lets Dorian pick the music and they do eventually end up going to that bar, so he takes the silence as answer enough.


End file.
